November 2006
As published in the Chapel Hill Herald on October 28th, 2006:
Alot of the civic discourse in Carrboro recently has been about green space and public open space. The most prominent example of this is the Weaver Street Market dancing controversy, which was recently resolved happily, in large part due to extensive public input about the situation.
One positive impact of that dialogue was that it got more people thinking about the importance and meaning of putting beautiful spaces in the community to use for the public good. As with the WSM situation, public participation and input will be vital to the success of the ongoing Carrboro Greenspace initiative, and the Greenways Summit the town of Carrboro is holding today at the Century Center.
A quick look back at the resolution of the "Dancing Man" controversy shows the impact citizen activism has on public space. Early on many folks in Carrboro made it very clear that curtailing Bruce Thomas' dancing on the lawn was unacceptable to them and took action on their concerns. Their letters to the editor, organizational meetings and dance-ins showed the support behind their cause.
Just read on BlueNC that someone is trying to trick Chapel Hill voters by representing a list of Republican judicial candidates as Democrats. Don't they know we are some of the most educated voters in the state?
Yesterday, I received various complaints about deceptive Republican tactics during the early voting in Chapel Hill. Apparently, Republican canvassers are approaching people entering the polls and asking if they're Democrats. If the answer is “yes,†they are given a flyer and told "This is a list of our judicial candidates." The problem: the list contains only the Republican candidates! Because Party affiliation isn't listed on the ballot, voters are being misled.
- North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jerry Meek quoted in Cheaters | BlueNC
If this is true, Republicans are even dumber (or more desperate) than I thought.
We're just four days out from the election now, so I'd be interested to hear some predictions on a couple fronts:
Obviously the most intense race locally is the well funded Superior Court race between incumbents Carl Fox and Allen Baddour, and challengers Chuck Anderson and Adam Stein.
-One thing I'll be watching with interest Tuesday night is Carl Fox's performance. During both the primary and the general, Fox has run the lowest profile campaign of the contenders. In the primary he finished first by a large margin nonetheless, likely owing to his name recognition and magnetic personality.
But that was the primary, and the wider electorate in the general is less likely to be familiar with Fox's record and personality. I think he'll probably still finish first, but by a much smaller margin, at least percentage-wise, than in the spring.
Weaver Street Market is having their annual member meeting this Sunday at noon. This is your last chance to meet the candidates and cast your vote for the Board of Directors.
From their newsletter:
The Weaver Street Market Annual Meeting will be held on Sunday, November 5 in the Carrboro Century Center. Free buffet lunch for all owners of the co-op will start at noon, followed by a “meet and greet†with the Board of Directors candidates and the business meeting. Mark your calendars and come learn about your co-op!
Hope to see y'all there!
NOTICE TO CITIZENS
CONCERNED ABOUT A
CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE
FOR CHAPEL HILL
PUBLIC HEARING
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 7PM
CHAPEL HILL TOWN HALL
405 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BLVD
The Town of Chapel Hill passed a Development Plan for UNC's Central Campus in 2001 under the OI-4 zoning ordinance. Two modifications have been requested and granted since that time.
Now UNC has submitted Development Plan Modification No. 3. This proposal includes over a million square feet of additional buildings on campus.
This page has all the unofficial stats for Orange County election returns: http://www.co.orange.nc.us/elect/2006general/
As of now (moments after polls closing), we can see the absentee results:
Anderson BaddourFox Stein
Absentee Mail 107 110 211 193
One Stop 2072 1937 3856 2990
Provisional 0 0 0 0
Transfer 0 0 0 0
Total 2179 2047 4067 3183
Referendum Yes No
Absentee Mail 202 103
One Stop 3834 1781
Provisional 0 0
Transfer 0 0
Total 4036 1884
Everything else is as expected....
Here are some hastily assembled maps of the general election results based on unofficial data from the Orange County Board of Elections (November 7, 2006). The first maps below show the results of the county commissioner election. Individual candidate maps are available here. They include charts that show the five best and five worst precincts for each candidate.
Well, it looks like it will be at least a few days before we have resolution on the second judicial seat in Superior Court district 15B. As we reported Tuesday night, Allan Baddour finished just 70 votes ahead of Adam Stein (who was less than 600 votes ahead of Chuck Anderson) in an extremely competitive race among very well-qualified candidates.
But the second incumbent, Judge Allen Baddour, finished only 70 votes ahead of challenger Adam Stein, a well-known Chapel Hill lawyer.
That's a lead of one-tenth of 1 percentage point.
The election was so close that even the fourth candidate, District Court Judge Charles Anderson, still finished within 1 percentage point of Baddour.
- N&O: Judge results have to wait
Local governments are practically salivating at the prospect of several new buildings that Orange County is planning to build in Hillsborough.
"What makes this different is we have 93,000 square feet of space in our inventory that we literally didn't have this time last week," Pam Jones, the county's purchasing director, told the board.
On Nov. 2, the commissioners approved an agreement of intent to build a central library, office building and parking deck off West Margaret Lane, as well as leasing the top two floors of the nearby Gateway Center. After one year and one day, the county has the option to buy those floors.
- heraldsun.com: County eyes department moves
This move will cause a lot of shuffling of departments, but also promises to serve the community by creating a new meeting room that will hopefully have more modern technology (for recording and broadcasting meetings). This and other new resourcs will be an asset to the whole community.
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